Skip to main content

She hopes, I exist

 


Diya Geomin is a grade 12 student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala, India. She wrote the following poem about a close friend of hers who is struggling with depression. Notice how the problems of the other person intertwine with those of the poet persona.

 

She hopes, I exist

By Diya Geomin

 

She hopes to see the better world

She hopes to know her true self

That nobody, even herself, knows 

She hopes to find a new fantasy 

To escape some time alone.

 

She hopes to hide under the stairs

To cry out her pain somewhere no one cares 

She hopes to escape into her books.

With the pennies she doesn't have.

 

She hopes to run away to an unknown place.

Full of surprises, waiting to be startled.

Waiting to be claimed, owned and used

Be with every lover her books could offer.

 

Yet to her dismay, she finds none.

It's only herself, all alone

Hoping for some twisted ways to escape

Hanging by a thread waiting to be dropped.

 

Just like me, she dreams

Dreams left unfulfilled 

Only to haunt her soul forever 

 

Oh, how ironic that you hope,

Unlike me, who let the shadows consume my mind.

You hope and hope until there is nothing left 

You believe in destiny, not yet proven.

You go with the flow and be exhausted.

 

Unlike me who's covered in the black ink

Hope is dangerous, it kills you from within.

Until all there is left are our tears

The tears of betrayal.

 

So, my love, I'm helpless like that

Waiting to be devoured by the darkness within.

So, while you do, please hope for me too. 


 xZx

Comments

  1. AnonymousMay 21, 2024 at 7:38 AM

    Wow

    ReplyDelete
  2. Priyabrata NandaMay 21, 2024 at 8:08 AM

    Some of the readers of her poetry would in actuality find this poem to be their own saga, experiencing excruciating pain and hopelessness. For others, it could be self- discovery with eluding solutions.
    Overall, an excellent poem from an young sojourner.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Diya GeominMay 21, 2024 at 5:46 PM

      Thank you so much. It is indeed a perspective of a person who hoped too much but got nothing in return. But they still continue to encourage others to hope even though they got nothing from it.

      Delete
  3. parwatisingariMay 21, 2024 at 10:45 AM

    Very intense. Maybe she should speak to me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Diya GeominMay 21, 2024 at 5:42 PM

      Thank you so much for your appreciative words.

      Delete
  4. Lakshmi ShajiMay 21, 2024 at 8:17 PM

    Powerful words...

    ReplyDelete
  5. DawnanddewMay 21, 2024 at 8:37 PM

    Beautifully crafted words! It's difficult to find such friends today. The lines are deeply melancholic and reassuring.

    ReplyDelete
  6. VinayMay 21, 2024 at 9:45 PM

    I love the last line - I'm helpless like that, Waiting to be devoured by the darkness within - it has as deep sense of sadness to it, a sense of reality about hopelessness and wonder. Very moving..

    ReplyDelete
  7. Liz A.May 21, 2024 at 10:04 PM

    Moving poem.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousMay 22, 2024 at 10:23 AM

    This poem reminds me of a thought that was written on the bulletin board of our classroom in Sawan. It said- " Never lose hope. Hope is a rope that swings you through life". Being from a Gurjar ethnicity, it was not easy to have a warm rapport with my teachers. So once my mathematics teacher read that thought and told me very sarcastically-"Beta! Tum bhi HOPE karte rahna, ek din zaroor maths mein pass ho jaoge".And guess what? I failed over and over again😊. Somethings never change, you see. Nostalgia strikes!

    Yours Last bencher:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 22, 2024 at 11:27 AM

      A lot of things could be different if we talked personally with people concerned. For example, if you had developed some sort of a rapport with that teacher, the entire situation would have been a lot different.

      Yet, I'm happy you're able to smile over these things now. All the best. I wish I could talk to you personally.

      Delete
    2. Diya GeominMay 22, 2024 at 4:40 PM

      This poem is about two people who are similar in character except for their perspective of hope. One of them is very hopeful while the other hoped too much and got nothing in return even though she encourage the other two hope. Because, could it be just her or is everyone unlucky in life?...

      Delete
    3. Tomichan MatheikalMay 22, 2024 at 6:07 PM

      If you start establishing contacts with people, you'll realise how sad most lives are!

      Delete
  9. Pradeep NairMay 22, 2024 at 12:00 PM

    Melancholic and intense.

    ReplyDelete
  10. marietta pereiraMay 22, 2024 at 6:31 PM

    The poem tugs at your heart strings.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
28 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Empuraan and Ramayana

Maggie and I will be watching the Malayalam movie Empuraan tomorrow. The tickets are booked. The movie has created a lot of controversy in Kerala and the director has decided to impose no less than 17 censors on it himself. I want to watch it before the jingoistic scissors find its way to the movie. It is surprising that the people of Kerala took such exception to this movie when the same people had no problem with the utterly malicious and mendacious movie The Kerala Story (2023). [My post on that movie, which I didn’t watch, is here .] Empuraan is based partly on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The riots were real and the BJP’s role in it (Mr Modi’s, in fact) is well-known. So, Empuraan isn’t giving the audience any falsehood as The Kerala Story did. Moreover, The Kerala Story maligned the people of Kerala while Empuraan is about something that happened in the faraway Gujarat quite long ago. Why are the people of Kerala then upset with Empuraan ? Because it tells the truth, M...
13 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
9 comments
Read more